Save Our Sounds
When I first got asked if I would like to come and work on a project about , I really had little idea what that meant.
After a while of getting my head around the concept of studying the world through sound and preserving endangered sounds, I was hooked. As a radio producer I like to think that I have a good appreciation of sound, but a simple exercise proved that even I take sound for granted most of the time. On the way to work one day I listened, really listened, and noted down all the sounds that I heard. Suddenly I realised how much gets lost in the general noise of everyday life.
The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World Service's Save Our Sounds project was all about getting people to stop and listen, to think more about the sounds around them and persuade them to try their hand at a bit of acoustic ecology themselves.
Alongside two documentaries from the Science Radio Unit, we created an interactive sound map which allows people to upload their sounds and place them on the map where they were recorded. Even those without recording capabilities can listen their way around the world with the sounds that have been sent in by other people. There's some truly fascinating stuff on there.
For the last two months I've been building up the Save Our Sounds community, by , emailing, talking to bloggers (and writing posts of my own) as well as doing radio interviews on community, local, national and international radio.
Its been such an honour to be the public (type) face of such an exciting project. Everyone I've spoken to about it has their own memories of special sounds and many have gone on to contribute to the project.
We've been running features like Sound Scavengers and Desperately Seeking Sounds - a sort of audio match-making service. People write in to tell us about a sound they'd like to hear again, and we ask the community if there's anyone able to record it. We've reunited people with things as diverse as Alpine cow bells to snails eating lettuce!
It's been such a thrill coming in each morning and seeing what has been submitted over night. Wolf-whistling birds, Ghanaian weavers, Japanese potato sellers, and the Antarctic ice-fall are just a few of my favourites.
Picture of Richard Ranft and Kate from the
Last night we handed over a disc with all the sounds that we've collected so far to Richard Ranft - the Head of the British Library Sound Archive. They have kindly agreed to house our collection of sounds so that they are well and truly "saved".
My time on the Save Our Sounds is up now, but the project goes on and the map will continue to accept sounds from around the world. Do send some in. Whilst I feel a pang of sadness saying my goodbyes to all the people that have helped with the project, I'm also really proud of what we've achieved. Anyway, a quick visit to the map to listen to the laughing hippos (you'll find them in the Serengeti) will soon have me smiling again.
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